Simulation plays a central role in population genomics studies. Recent years have seen rapid improvements in software efficiency that make it possible to simulate large genomic regions for many individuals sampled from large numbers of populations. As the complexity of the demographic models we study grows, however, there is an ever-increasing opportunity to introduce bugs in their implementation. Here, we describe two errors made in defining population genetic models using the msprime coalescent simulator that have found their way into the published record. We discuss how these errors have affected downstream analyses and give recommendations for software developers and users to reduce the risk of such errors.
Journal article
American journal of human genetics
10/2020
107
583 - 588
McGill Genome Centre and Department of Human Genetics, McGill University, Montréal, QC H2X 3C9, Canada.
Humans, Genetics, Population, Demography, Genome, Human, Algorithms, Models, Genetic, History, Ancient, Computer Simulation, Software, Genetic Variation, Human Migration